The Centro de las Artes occupies a vast neoclassical building that served as the state prison from 1884 until 1999. The conversion is thought-provoking: the same architecture of confinement and control now houses studios, performance spaces, and the Museo Leonora Carrington, dedicated to the surrealist painter who spent the last decades of her life in Mexico.
The Leonora Carrington collection is the main draw — her paintings are strange, intricate worlds populated by alchemical creatures, witches, and hybrid beings. Carrington was part of the European surrealist circle around André Breton before fleeing to Mexico during World War II, and her work here is more personal and less mannered than her earlier European output. The rest of the centre stages temporary exhibitions of contemporary art from across Latin America, and there are often free concerts in the central courtyard on weekend evenings.